The Necklace
by ChestnutBrumby
Summary: Oneshot Avengers tie-in with the Winter Soldier. Set after the former, and before the latter. Clint/Tasha, rated T for some fleeting thoughts of adult situations. Clint ought to have gotten a mention in TWS, but at least he did get the necklace.


**A/N| I literally cannot believe that I missed this the first time I watched Cappy 2. During my second viewing this afternoon in the downtime at Sam's place scene, I managed to tear my gaze away from Chris Evans (an impressive feat with the arm muscles he had on display) and notice something about our favourite former Russian spy.**  
**She's wearing a necklace. A silver one, with a tiny little arrow on it. Not an arrow as in - 'this way', an arrow as in bow and arrow. Rest assured I nearly lost my shit right there in the movie theater in front of a bunch of strangers.**  
**...Need I say more?**

* * *

Natasha gripped the wheel so hard her knuckles were flat white. Clint cast her the occasional look, but he didn't break her silence. She pulled up to the gate, edged either side with a ten-food hedge she knew had a 10,000 volt charge running though concealed wires hidden inside. She remained steadily staring through the windshield refusing to meet his eyes. He wanted to reach out for her, but the expression on her face warned she might break his wrist if he tried, and with all the static in his brain he honestly couldn't trust his own instincts anymore. It was why they were here. She got out of the car, and he followed. He took a deep breath of the bitingly cold mountain air, focusing, concentrated on her for the stability it lent his thoughts.  
"Tasha." It was his softest tone, the one that before Natasha only his mother ever heard. After she died, until he met Natasha, it was a tone Clint had forgotten how to use.  
Things were different with Natasha than with anybody else. He was different with her, and she was different with him. They had taken turns to chip each others walls down and helped build them up again, with just the two of them on the inside.  
He wasn't Clint Barton, Hawkeye, the legendary archer who never missed a shot. She wasn't the deadly Black Widow, only called upon when everyone else had failed. He couldn't predict her, the way he did everything else in his life. She didn't have a mission for him.  
She gave in, turned to face him, and he was truly shocked to see a tear glinting on her cheek. This time he obeyed his base instinct, placing his rough fingertips against the softness of her cheek to wipe it away. "I'm going to come back."  
"You'd better." Nobody else would have heard the waver in her voice, but he did. She caught his hand in her own, fingers possessively tight around his. "It feels like goodbye. You know how I am with goodbyes."

Clint took several moments to respond. He had to fight it - the voices, the unexpected surges of what felt like water-slicked electricity rattling around his head. He was still in there, scattered throughout the remnants of alien brainwashing, and he would be damned if he let it loose him his lifeline.

"It's not goodbye." He swore, reaching into his pocket and pulling out her gift, holding it clumsily out to her. He couldn't bring himself to the cliche of leaving it in one of those little boxes, and when curiosity got the better of her and she held out her palm, he dropped the chain with it's tiny charm into her hand. "You don't have to wear it. I know how you feel about jewelery." He muttered, awkwardly kicking his toes into the sandy soil. Natasha held it up to the light, her eyes widening when she saw the miniature silver arrow. "It's just... to remind you. I'm still with you, Nat." He promised, feeling his throat threaten to close. This was so much harder than he thought it'd be. He had to do this for him... but leaving her had never felt this difficult before.

She closed her fingers over the charm as if it were the most precious thing she'd ever held. Then she turned her back to him, shifting closer, holding it over her shoulder for him to put on.  
His surge of happiness as the wordless acceptance was tempered by the loss of knowing this could be the last time he saw in, maybe in months or more.  
He moved aside the blazing red hair that never failed to take his breath away when she walked into a room. It was difficult, being this close to her, smelling her shampoo and having her soft skin under his fingertips. His impulse control had been all over the place since Loki decided to rewrite his allegiances and Nat was still Nat - quite plainly, the damned sexiest women alive.  
For a moment he entertained the fantasy of pulling her back to the car, getting her to drive with her crazy-scary speed to the nearest uninhabited place and rolling around in the backseat with her for the entire night.  
It was probably not the sort of therapy he needed.

He fastened the clasp and let the thin necklace settle against her skin. She turned back to face him, her eyes too bright.

"Its _not_ goodbye." He emphasized. "Remember that when you put this on." He touched the arrow with his forefinger. "It stays with you because they won't fly straight when I'm away from you."

He sometimes wondered if he made sense, even to the person who knew him best. Natasha straightened her back, getting her emotions under control. Her fingers touched his face, tracing the shape of his jaw, then she pulled back, turning towards the car, composing herself again into Black Widow. "Call me when you're ready to come home." She kept her voice steady this time, and Clint couldn't make himself move as she reached out for the car door, even though watching her drive away would be worse torture than anything Loki had done to him.  
She hesitated, then Black Widow the agent crumpled and became Natasha Romanoff the woman. She turned and took two strides back to him, and he had a splint second to wonder if the dream had taken over reality when she seized his face and hauled him in for an wonderfully possessive kiss. His arms went around her instantly lifting her off the ground and pulling her flush against him in the one movement, groaning when her tongue stroked along his bottom lip. He buried a hand in her hair, felt one of hers on the back of his neck and the other sliding under his shirt, warm pressure along the curves of his back. He went along with it like a surfer swept by a wave and for however long her lips remained on his, there was nothing in the world that could touch him.

"I love it. Thank you." She whispered when she let him go, still close enough that her lips brushed his. "You're the only one Clint. You know that."

He knew that - and he would remember it on this mission, this road he had to travel down alone to repair the damage that had been done winning the world it's freedom. As long as Natasha was waiting for him, he knew he could find the way.


End file.
